1. Technical Field
The present invention is generally related to thermal management technology and, more particularly, is related to an apparatus and method for cooling heat-producing bodies or components using an integrated cooling module.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cooling of heat-producing bodies is a concern in many different technologies. Particularly in microprocessors, the rise in heat dissipation levels accompanied by a shrinking thermal budget has resulted in the need for new cooling solutions beyond conventional thermal management techniques. This has led to an increased demand for advanced and robust cooling solutions with severe volume constraints. In the microelectronics industry, for example, advances in technology have brought about an increase in transistor density and faster electronic chips. As electronic packages increase in speed and capability, the heat flux that must be dissipated to maintain reasonable chip temperatures has also risen. Thermal management is recognized as a major challenge in the design and packaging of state-of-the-art integrated circuits in single-chip and multi-chip modules.
While air-cooling under natural convection conditions is the simplest possible way to cool a high heat flux device, high power dissipation requirements often necessitate the use of fans. Typically, these fans are placed either directly on a heat sink or are positioned to drive airflow through the heat sink by way of a duct in the heat sink. While fans have the capacity to move a substantial volume of air, they are noisy, unreliable and generally very inefficient in terms of the heat removed for a given rate of fluid flow.
Arrays of air-jets have also been used in cooling applications as an alternative to fans. However, conventional air-jets are not very useful for consumer products, due to requirements of pressure supplies and conduits for directing the air to the heat sink. This makes design of the cooling system too complex and the cost of the cooling system too high for consumer product applications.
Another method of cooling that has been explored involves the use of synthetic jet actuators to form what is known as a synthetic jet, or a synthetic jet stream of fluid. Synthetic or “zero-mass” jets derive their name from the fact that they are synthesized without injection of mass into the system and are comprised entirely of the ambient fluid. This lends them a simplicity that cannot be achieved with conventional unsteady blowing systems.
Although there has been some research into using synthetic jet actuators in cooling applications, the concept of using synthetic jets for heat transfer is relatively new. For example, in an effort to remedy some of the limitations of previous cooling techniques, the use of synthetic or “zero-net-mass-flux” jets in thermal management is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,123,145. U.S. Pat. No. 6,123,145 is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, as if fully set forth herein.
As a further example of the development of thermal management techniques with synthetic jet actuators, an apparatus and device for effective channel cooling has been developed. This apparatus and method is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,588,497, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, as if fully set forth herein. However, only some of the vast potential for synthetic jets in cooling applications has been explored.
A heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.